Do not measure your loss by itself; if you do, it will seem intolerable; but if you will take all human affairs into account you will find that some comfort is to be derived from them.

I have learned from Jesus Christ Himself what charity is, and how we ought to practise it; for He says: "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye love one another." Never can I, therefore, please myself in the hope that I may obtain the name of a servant of Christ if I possess not a true and unfeigned charity within me.

There is nothing unpremeditated, nothing neglected by God. His unsleeping eye beholds all things.

Now, if you notice how the swan, putting its neck down into the deep water, brings up food for itself from below, then you will discover the wisdom of the Creator, in that He gave it a neck longer than its feet for this reason, that it might, as if lowering a sort of fishing line, procure the food hidden in the deep water.

Drunkenness, the ruin of reason, the destruction of strength, premature old age, momentary death.

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger.

Who is the covetous man? One for whom plenty is not enough.